


Year 1

by SingingInTheRaiin



Series: Minerva McGonagall and the Troublesome Boy [2]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Draco is a good friend, Gen, M/M, McGonagall is a worried mama bear, Pre-Relationship, Slytherin Harry, Stubborn Harry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-27
Updated: 2019-03-27
Packaged: 2019-12-25 06:58:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,115
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18256121
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SingingInTheRaiin/pseuds/SingingInTheRaiin
Summary: The end of year 1





	Year 1

“...you’re a complete idiot, has anyone ever told you that before?”

Harry hesitated before apparently deciding that just responding to Draco was probably easier than pretending like he wasn’t there, no matter how much he must have wanted to. Harry sighed in defeat. “I’ve heard it around once or twice.” He pulled his invisible cloak off, and crinkled it up into a ball in his hands. “How did you know I was here?”

Draco snorted. “You didn’t balance your cloak properly, so I could still see your feet. Oh, and there’s the part where I know that you own an invisible cloak. Honestly, Harry, did you really think you’d be able to just walk out of here and I wouldn’t notice? Stupid and brave, I’m surprised you weren’t put into Gryffindor afterall.”

“You think I’m brave?”

Draco rolled his eyes. “That is not even close to being the point at the moment. Anyways, come along.”

Harry frowned. “I’m not going back to bed. Someone has to-”

Draco reached out to grab Harry’s arm and start tugging him towards the dorm exit. “I know. And I also know that you’ll probably get yourself killed without me, so come on.”

,,,

Draco actually felt vaguely offended offended by the surprise on Harry’s face. “Did you honestly doubt my chess skills? I believed in your flying, but you didn’t believe in my chess playing ability?”

“No, I just… I’ve never seen you play before. Why didn’t you ever ask me if I wanted to play?”

He gave a doubtful look in return. “Honestly you’re so uncultured sometimes, I wasn’t even sure you’d know what chess is, and I wouldn’t want to embarrass you.”

Harry shoved at Draco’s shoulder. “I know what chess is, you arse.” And then, while Draco was distracted, Harry grabbed one of the vials to drink from. Draco started to reach out to stop him, but he was too late, and they both waited for several agonizingly long seconds before it seemed as though nothing would happen.

Then they both seemed to let out sighs of relief simultaneously, before Draco punched Harry in the arm. “I’m not sorry to tell you this, but if you’re trying to disprove the fact that you’re an idiot, then you are sorely failing.” He heaved out a big sigh. “Well, go on ahead. It’s not like I can follow you now. And don’t think that that’s the end of this. You have a big lecture coming your way once you’ve secured that stupid hunk of rock.”

,,,

Waiting around for Harry to potentially do something dumb wasn’t Draco’s idea of a good time. He didn’t like to consider himself a snitch, but he also didn’t want his only real friend to end up dead. Of course he had other friends, but they were all friends because of family connections and money and power. Harry was his friend because he wanted to be.

So Draco went back the way they’d came, and went to go wake up his godfather. He was pretty sure that Severus hated Harry for some reason, but he wouldn’t actually let a student die, and he’d be less annoying to deal with than Dumbledore would be. 

It didn’t take very long to explain the situation to Severus, who told Draco to go back to the dorm and let the adults handle things. And while that hardly seemed fair at all, Draco also knew that he couldn’t actually do anything to help, and it frustrated him to no end. Since first coming to Hogwarts and leaving his parents’ home, he’d felt like he was in control of everything all the time. But right now he felt entirely helpless, and he hated it, and he hated Harry for making him feel that way.

Of course he couldn’t just return to bed with what was going on at the moment. So on a hunch, Draco headed to the hospital wing. He knew that Harry was oddly accident prone for someone who could be so graceful and poised while on broomstick. And sure enough, he wasn’t waiting around for long before Severus and Dumbledore came by, carrying an unconscious Harry with them. 

Severus gave Draco a sour look, but didn’t tell him to go away, which Draco took as permission to stick around. He made sure to stay quiet and out of the way so that his godfather wouldn’t change his mind. Harry was taken behind a curtain for a few minutes before he emerged in clean hospital clothes, and was then tucked into an empty bed before Madame Pomfrey cast an array of spells at him.

Once she was done, Draco figured that it would be okay to pull a chair over and sit down next to Harry. The dark-haired boy honestly looked like he was sleeping more peacefully than he usually did, and if it weren’t for the large scrape on the top of his head, it wouldn’t look like anything was wrong with him at all. “Is he okay?”

Severus put his hand on Draco’s shoulder for a moment. “He’ll be fine. Potters are stubborn bastards.” Seriously, Draco was going to have to try and get the story about all this someday. He couldn’t figure out why anyone would hate Harry, except for maybe Voldemort’s followers or something. 

It was only a few minutes after Pomfrey had finished up that the infirmary doors swung open and McGonagall strode in. She looked as dignified and put-together as always, but the normal stern look on her face seemed slightly less pinched than normal, and her hands were clasped together tightly. She gave Draco an odd look, and then summoned a chair to sit down on the other side of Harry’s bed. She reached out to take one of his hands. “Foolish child,” she muttered. Then she looked over at Draco again. “Were you already looked over?”

Draco shifted awkwardly in his seat at being addressed by the woman who was basically Harry’s mom (even if Harry always insisted otherwise). “I wasn’t hurt at all,” he muttered. If his parents were here they’d tell him to speak up and enunciate, but McGonagall didn’t seem to care at all. “I don’t even know what happened. We were both fine, and then he stupidly-” he cut himself off. He wasn’t sure what McGonagall thought about him, but insulting her kid would probably not be seen as endearing. 

To his surprise, she let out a soft chuckle. “He’s always been a stubborn boy. And brave to a fault. The first time that he broke a bone under my care was when his best friend climbed a tree and was too frightened to come back down, so he climbed up to keep her company, until he ended up falling out and breaking his arm.”

Draco narrowed his eyes. “His best friend?” He couldn’t hide the emotion in his voice at the that he wasn’t Harry’s best friend, even though Harry was his. It made sense; if Harry had been raised by McGonagall then he wouldn’t have been raised to only care about pureblood children, and he would have most likely had more opportunities to build up genuine friendships. It still stung, though. He hated that it suddenly felt like there was some kind of imbalance of power between them. 

Eventually McGonagall had to go and take care of her duties, and he politely declined when she suggested that he head to bed himself. It had been a long night, and he was exhausted, but he needed to wait and see for himself that Harry was going to be okay. 

Draco had nodded off at one point, but he was woken up the soft thumping sounds, and he cracked his eyes open to see Dumbledore placing down a lot more candy and flowers around Harry’s bed than necessary. Weren’t you supposed to give sick people some space, and not crowd them within an inch of their life? He opened his eyes fully to level Dumbledore with one of the meanest glares that he could summon. Dumbledore only laughed. “Terribly sorry to wake you, my boy. I only wanted to make sure that Harry had plenty of well wishes to wake up to.”

“He will. But he still needs his rest, so you should probably go back to worrying about the entire school, like your job asks you to, instead of focusing on a single student.” He’d never been a huge fan of Dumbledore, mostly because his father was always talking down about the man, but now there was a more personal aspect to it. He had no idea what Dumbledore wanted with Harry- to cash in on his fame? to gain access to his wealth? But whatever it was, it made the man highly suspect, in Draco’s eyes, and he didn’t like it at all. 

Fortunately, Dumbledore decided to heed Draco’s words, and left as was requested of him, after offering a few more fake sounding platitudes. Draco nodded in satisfaction, and then did his best to try and stay awake after that so that there would be no more surprise visitors.

,,,

“Draco, wake up. You’re going to complain endlessly about your back if you keep sleeping in that position, and you’re going to somehow find a way to blame me for it, which I do not appreciate.”

Draco grunted out some nonsense, and then tried to snuggle in closer to- He suddenly jerked up when he realized that he’d been pressing the top of his head up against Harry’s stomach, and that the other boy had been lightly patting his head. There was a look of amusement on Harry’s face, the bastard. “Don’t go getting too smug there. Have you already forgotten that you’re owed a lecture?”

The smile quickly dropped, and Harry dipped his head forward apologetically. “I’m sorry for doing that, but we both know that you would have stood around for ages debating the stupid riddle, and that I needed to get in there and stop the stone from being stolen.”

Draco sighed in annoyance, mostly because he knew that Harry was right. “Your life isn’t worth some stupid rock that can supposedly provide eternal life, or whatever. If you ever try to pull a dumb stunt like that again, then we’re not going to be friends anymore.” It was meant to be a joke, but the way that Harry’s eyes widened in alarm made something flutter in Draco’s chest. “Oh, whatever. You’ll probably do something else stupid before the end of the day so there’s no point in making this the hill that I die on. Just tell me what happened once you went in.”

Harry’s shoulders slumped down in relief. “The mirror of Erised was there, and I looked in it, and-” he suddenly reached down to pat at his thigh where a pocket would be. “I saw myself in the mirror holding the stone, and then it was actually there. But then Professor Quirrell was there too, but the back of his head was all messed up, and my hands burned his face, and-”

Draco held up one hand. “You know what? Nevermind. Try telling me all of this again once you’ve calmed down and distanced yourself a bit because right now you sound like a babbling madman.”

Harry nodded. “Alright.” Then he reached over to put his hand on top of where Draco’s was resting flat on the bed. “Thanks for going down there with me.”

Draco shrugged, and fought to keep his face from flushing a light pink. “Yeah, yeah, whatever.” But he was pleased to have Harry’s gratitude. “Now why don’t you open some of these chocolate frogs so that we can see if there’s any new cards to add to your currently very limited collection.” 

Harry laughed, and both boys began rummaging through all of the candy that Dumbledore had left there. Draco was sure that no matter what other agenda Dumbledore had, he wouldn’t just go and poison a student, especially not one he claimed to like so much. But Draco planned to keep an eye on the man. Of course he wasn’t going to say anything to Harry because he didn’t want to worry his friend, but he’d definitely keep vigilant watch to make sure that Harry’s dumb ass didn’t wind up back in the hospital wing again. But that was something to worry about later today, once Harry was released and back in the custody of all the other Slytherins who would be fascinated to know how their golden boy was doing. For right now, Draco was just going to enjoy the sound of Harry’s laughter, and be glad that they’d become friends.


End file.
